


man of your dreams

by orphan_account



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Debatable Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Not Beta Read, Psychological Horror, Weirdness, i guess, i had a dream about this and wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 01:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: One time, you think you see him. Long, dark hair, red flannel, smile bright enough to power the entirety of New York City for eternity. But it’s crowded, it’s the subway, and, when you blink, he’s gone.But the thing is, you keep thinking you see him. At Starbucks behind you in line. On the streets calling a cab. In the lobby of your apartment complex yelling at the landlord. At a desk on the other side of the room from yours staring at a computer. But, every time you blink, he’s gone. And, every time you blink, you forget.





	man of your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> this is purely because i had a dream like this and immediately wrote it down. idk what any of this is or why it's in second person pov

_ “You’re sweet,”  _ he smiles, his voice as soft as the earth you’re both sitting on. You reach over to brush some hair out of his face, and the vision fades, and it’s just you in your bedroom petting your pillow like it’s the man from your dreams. Of your dreams. Fuck. 

 

You ignore your cat’s judgemental glare and slip out from under the covers, stretch, stand, stretch again, ignore your cat’s judgemental stare as a couple of bones pop with extreme prejudice. You go get ready for the day and forget the dream, because that’s just what you do. You have a life to do, whether you want to or not, and no extremely handsome dream man can stop you. So, as always, you push the dream to the back of your mind and do what you have to do. 

 

-

 

So the first dream was the night of your eighteenth birthday, and the man was standing with you in a field of daisies. No one else in sight. The only sounds being his voice softly humming along to a song you only vaguely recognize and a couple of rabbits going at it a couple of feet away. 

 

_ “You should think about going into journalism,”  _ were his first words to you. 

 

_ “I was actually thinking neuroscience,”  _ you had said, unsure as to why this random dream man was giving you advice. Maybe it was like the whole Dream Obama thing. Maybe it still is, only Dream Obama looks a lot like a white dude with long hair and a dreamy smile. 

 

The man had grunted, shoving his hands into his pockets, and you had just stood there, basking in both the sunlight and in this man’s song. 

 

It was only after you woke up and went downstairs for too many slices of bacon that you realized that he was humming the theme to  _ Dora the Explorer  _ and that you hadn’t heard that song in years. And then you had it in your head for the rest of the day, and for the rest of the week, and for the rest of your life, not because it’s a good song, which is arguable at best, but because the way the man had hummed it gave it life, a feeling of warmth that you weren’t, and aren’t, sure of the base for. Because it was just some dream dude humming Dora. And, while you did, and do, have a bit of a reputation for falling in love with literally every person at first sight, you literally can’t fall in love with a figment of your imagination. For that is not only unhealthy, it’s also just plain stupid. 

 

-

 

You are a Polygon-Dot-Com video producer, and you still don’t know how you made it this far without fucking up and having a heart attack mid-stream. Or mid-anything, because you are an anxious boy who likes being in front of the camera but also  _ really doesn’t like being in front of the goddamn camera _ . But your boss says you’re gold, your coworkers say you’re gold, and the internet says you’re a cryptid-god-fae being who has blessed the world with your dumbassery and also your uncanny ability to look good mid-mental breakdown. 

 

_ “Congrats,”  _ the man had said the night your application was sent in. He looked more...real, if that’s a thing a dream can be. More solid. Solid enough to pull you into a hug that lasted more than the normal two seconds before fading away into black nothingness. 

 

You had wanted to ask why it was a congratulations, you hadn’t gotten the job yet, you had literally just sent in a video that might be too out there, too weird, too stupid, too cringy, too whatever to be anything remotely close to what they would be looking for. Not to mention it, like, sucked ass? Or something like that, anyway. Honestly, you had lost all of those ideas the moment you saw him and that field. 

 

There was a house in it that night, something just far enough on the horizon to be unreachable, yet something familiar. Wooden, a small column of smoke rising from a chimney. Maybe a horse next to it, maybe a llama, maybe a very deformed dog. Something in the back of your mind told you  _ home _ . Same voice as the man’s. 

 

But you woke up and immediately forgot, because that’s just what you do. You had things to do, very important adult things. Because you had to busy yourself and wait for the inevitable rejection email. 

 

-

 

One time, you think you see him. Long, dark hair, red flannel, smile bright enough to power the entirety of New York City for eternity. But it’s crowded, it’s the subway, and, when you blink, he’s gone. 

 

But the thing is, you keep thinking you see him. At Starbucks behind you in line. On the streets calling a cab. In the lobby of your apartment complex yelling at the landlord. At a desk on the other side of the room from yours staring at a computer. But, every time you blink, he’s gone. And, every time you blink, you forget. 

 

That night, you don’t dream of him or the field. Instead, it’s a long white tunnel with a big red door at the end, and, as you get closer, it gets farther away. And you run, and it’s suddenly there, and you’re running into it, and you open the door, and you wake up. 

 

And you remember that one. 

 

-

 

_ “I miss you,”  _ he says one night. You’re side by side in the field on a pink-checkered beach blanket, a bright yellow umbrella sticking out of the grass to block out the sun for some fucking reason. Maybe he’s a vampire. That would be cool. 

 

“Why?” you ask. 

  
He glances at you, and, as usual, there’s nothing in his eyes except for a brilliant white light that leaves you blinking dark spots out of your vision for hours. 

 

_ “What, can’t I miss my boyfriend?”  _ he asks, smiling a bit. He snorts and turns his attention back to the endless expanse of grass before you two. 

 

“You know, I still don’t get that,” you say. You pick a daisy and twirl it between your fingers thoughtfully. “I don’t even know you. You’re a figment of my subconscious.”

 

_ “No, I’m Patrick,”  _ he smiles. He moves to grab your hand but thinks better of it, instead leaning back on both palms and sighing.  _ “I miss you.” _

 

“You’re weird.”

 

_ “No, I’m Patrick,”  _ he smiles. He moves to grab your hand but thinks better of it, instead leaning back on both palms and sighing. 

 

You look at the daisy and hold it out to him. “Here. This way, I’ll be here when I’m not, you know, asleep.”

 

He takes the daisy carefully, avoiding touching your fingers, and you suddenly feel a deep longing to know what his skin feels like against yours. He tucks it behind his ear and turns his head to fully look at you. 

 

_ “You won’t forget me this time, will you?”  _ he asks, and your heart sinks as you try and come up with something to say other than ‘Sorry, bud, I can’t help it’, but he bows his head and closes his eyes.  _ “We’ll get there someday.” _

 

“Yeah,” you say, because you feel the need to say something to that. To reply to everything he says. It’s a dream thing, you think. “I’m working on it.”

 

_ “Thanks,”  _ he says, sounding not at all thankful.  _ “I love you.” _

 

You swallow and grip the blanket tightly. “I don’t know you.”

 

_ “I’m Patrick,”  _ he whispers, sounding almost like he’s trying to convince himself. He nods and picks a daisy, tucking it behind your ear, the opposite one his is behind, with a smile. As he does so, his fingers just barely graze your cheek, and you’re yanked away back to your bed. 

 

You ignore your cat’s judgemental glare and slip out from under the covers, stretch, stand, stretch again, ignore your cat’s judgemental stare as a couple of bones pop with extreme prejudice. You go get ready for the day and forget the dream, because that’s just what you do. You have a life to do, whether you want to or not, and no extremely handsome dream man can stop you. 

 

You look up at your reflection in the bathroom mirror and freeze. With a trembling hand, you pick a daisy out from behind your ear and stare at it. 

 

-

 

You don’t remember exactly when you realized you like guys, but it was sometime around the time when your dream man started showing up. And, even then, you were convinced it was just him. He had long hair like a girl. Made daisy chains and flower crowns like a girl. But then you met your first college roommate, and, well, all that went out the window. 

 

-

 

The daisy is still there when you get out of the shower. It’s still there when you rush back into the bathroom after breakfast because you forgot to put in your contacts and your glasses are still busted. You don’t know where it came from, but you feel the need to take it with you, so you tuck it into your shirt’s breast pocket and ignore Laura’s confused look, your cat’s hungry stare. 

 

You leave it on your desk while you go out with Jenna for lunch. It’s still there when you come back, no sign of wear or tear anywhere on it. Jenna tries to pick it up, and you smack her hand away. 

 

“Uh,” you say, shrinking back in your chair. “Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s fine,” she says. She smiles and waves and heads back to her desk, and you stare down at this weird fucking flower. 

 

That night as you head home, you leave the daisy on your desk and hope that the janitors take it off your hands. Because it’s weird and you maybe hate it. And you also love it. And then you hate it again when you look down at your watch and see the flower tucked between it and your wrist. The man next to you on the subway gives you a weird look as you scream a bit and throw a wholeass daisy down the car, but that’s fine. It’s fine. 

 

“You good?” he asks, and, as you look down to smile at him in a way that you think might be welcoming and apologetic, you realize that he doesn’t have a face. Well, he does. Just not one that you can recognize. You get a glimpse of a pair of glasses, a flash of dark hair, but you blink and it’s just a man. 

 

“Yeah, it’s, uh,” you stammer, your heart beating faster and faster the longer he looks at you. “I’m allergic.”

 

He slowly nods and goes back to his phone, and you sigh. You check your watch again and absolutely pass out when you see a singular white daisy pinned beneath it. 

 

-

 

He’s there when you open your eyes, him and his field. And you sigh in relief because at least he’s normal. Until you see the daisy behind his ear. The matching one in your breast pocket. 

 

You scramble to your feet and back away, and he frowns. 

 

_ “What’s wrong?”  _ he asks, his head tilted in a way just shy of extremely fucking adorable. 

 

“What are you?” you ask, putting a hand out in front of you. You wake up if you two touch. Or he just disappears and you get the extremely relaxing black void of hatred and despair. 

 

_ “I’m Patrick,”  _ he says, simple, and you groan. 

 

“Not who. What are you, ‘Patrick’, because your fucking...your this!” You pull out the daisy and wave it around. His eyes follow it. Maybe. You can’t tell with his lack of pupils or anything. “Keeps following me!”

 

_ “It’s yours.” _

 

“No, it’s not. It’s yours, and I don’t want it.”

 

His frown deepens and he takes a step closer. Another step. Another, until he’s just shy of your outstretched, shaking hand. 

 

_ “Why?”  _ he asks, reminding you distantly of a puppy you found on the side of the road running by your childhood home. It had begged to be let in. Your mom locked the door on it. You had crouched by the door and talked to it until its whines had subsided and the pound had arrived. 

 

“Because you’re weird!” you exclaim, waving the daisy around wildly. His eyes still maybe follow it. “And you think you’re my boyfriend!”

 

_ “I am your boyfriend,”  _ he says, calm. Too calm. That’s the thing about him, he’s always too fucking calm to reasonably be a part of your subconscious. 

 

“No, you are a literal figment of my imagination. A dream person. Who somehow made a dream flower real and creepy. You’re creepy.”

 

_ “I’m not creepy.” _

 

You laugh, maybe a bit too maniacally for his liking because he takes a half-step forward, and back away again. “You are so fucking creepy, dude. What’s your deal, anyway? Mystical dream demon here to kill me in my sleep?”

 

_ “That’s Freddy, dude.” _

 

“I know that,” you snap. “You’re fuckin’...fuck it. I’m going to wake up, and I’m going to forget this ever happened.”

 

You crush the daisy in your hand and drop it to the ground. He watches it fall and steps back, and back, and back until he’s back where he started. The daisy behind his ear is still there, a stark white against his dark hair.

 

“Please,” you say. Beg. “I don’t want that thing.”

 

_ “You gave me one,”  _ he says, sounding an awful lot like a petulant child. 

 

You blink. “I...what?”

 

_ “I miss you, Brian,”  _ he says. He pulls the daisy from behind his ear and twirls it between his pointer and his thumb.  _ “Why won’t you miss me?” _

 

“Because…” You find yourself struggling, the field around the two of you flickering to a white hallway and back to the field. The red door is behind him, cracked open. His black shirt seems to meld with the door’s shadow. “I don’t know you.”

 

He sadly smiles and tucks the flower back behind his ear.  _ “I’m Patrick.” _

 

He reaches behind himself and closes the door, and suddenly you’re back in the subway car, on the floor, with a whole two people making sure you aren’t dead. One is an older woman. The other is the man whose face you can’t see. You catch a hint of scruff, but then it’s gone. 

 

The daisy is behind his ear, and you groggily reach up to grab it. He catches your wrist, and you gasp because he’s  _ cold _ . 

 

“You…” you mutter, not knowing what you want to say. 

 

“You shouldn’t be moving,” he says. He laughs a bit. “Knocked your head pretty hard on your way down. Uh, are you alright?”

 

“I’m fine,” you say, and the woman frowns. 

 

He shakes his head. “Dude, you fainted. You aren’t fine.”

 

“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” you say, pushing yourself to a sitting position. 

 

“What?” the woman asks. “Dear, who are you talking to?”

 

You look at the man, but he’s gone. Where he was crouched is a single white daisy. 

 

-

 

You immediately call up your therapist and sit back and let yourself breathe. The daisy is tucked back into your breast pocket, and it’s warm. And you hate it. 

 

The woman had left you in the capable hands of yourself as soon as her stop came up, and, frankly, you wish she had stayed. Because you keep finding yourself drifting off, closing your eyes for a second and finding him staring at you like you’re his world. But you aren’t, you aren’t, and you’re always surprised when you see him because he kind of looks like the man from the subway. But you don’t know what he looks like, either. They have a similar energy, maybe, but that’s all bullshit, anyway. 

 

You nod off for but a moment, long enough to be back in the field with him. 

 

_ “I’m sorry,”  _ he says. 

 

“Fuck you,” you say. 

 

And he snorts and looks off into the distance. The house is closer this time. Close enough for you to make out that the weird animal is actually a camel. 

 

“Is that a camel?” you ask. 

 

The man beams.  _ “His name’s Derek.” _

 

“Ah,” you say, because the fact that your brain has a pet camel named Derek is actually not at all strange. It’s weirder that your brain has a weird, creepy man living inside it named Patrick. 

 

He goes for your hand, taking a step forward, looking as if he wants to pull you along, but the moment he touches you, you’re awake and about to get off the subway. 

 

-

 

The man from the subway is your cab driver. You blink, and your cab driver is a middle-aged Hispanic woman talking about her kids. 

 

The man from the subway is the new intern. You blink, and the new intern is a young man who looks like he’s about to pass out. 

 

The man from the subway is in bed next to you. You blink, and the man next to you in bed is actually Zuko. 

 

-

 

So here’s the thing about the dream man: you don’t think you have ever loved him. Because, again, he’s just a part of your subconscious. And besides that, he’s fucking weird. His favorite word is ‘piss’. He has the DK Rap memorized despite you only playing through the original game once when you were eleven and getting too frustrated to even consider replaying it. Every time he looks at you, he looks so completely in love that you have to take a moment to remember that this man isn’t real. That you are not his Brian, he is not your Patrick, and he is not real. Though sometimes that’s hard. 

 

Sometimes he feels real. Sometimes before the daisy incident, you’d think you could reach out and touch him, hold him. Even now after you know that he’s a fucking freak and you know that you should really be asking your therapist about this shit, you feel the need to kiss his face off and call it a night. Which is ridiculous. And you hate it. Because, underneath all of this, you feel like you know him from somewhere. Which is ridiculous. Because you don’t. You don’t. This motherfucker just showed up when you turned eighteen and never left. 

 

Sometimes when you’re too tired to think about dealing with his bull, you lie down in the grass and let him talk. Because you like his voice, and you really want to know what his deal is. And so he sits in the grass next to you and talks. 

 

_ “So many bananas,”  _ he muses. 

 

You suddenly get a flash of something in your mind. The two of you on a couch covered in bananas and laughing, and then it’s gone. 

 

You sit up and look at him. Stare, maybe. You can almost see the bananas sitting on his shoulders. He still has the same smile on his face. You realize you have the same smile on your face. 

 

“I don’t understand,” you say. “What the fuck was that?”

 

He tilts his head.  _ “What was what?” _

 

You wave your hand around a bit in an attempt to...do something. It does nothing other than make your arm tired and disturb the grass around you. 

 

“So many bananas,” you mumble. He lifts his head, but you’re already poking his knee, and, when you wake up, you have a sudden craving for bananas. 

 

-

 

“Why are you here?” you ask one night. You are dangerously close to him. One shift in the wrong direction and you’d be kicked to the eternal black void. Or the hallway. You aren’t sure which you’d prefer. 

 

He shrugs.  _ “I love you.” _

 

“You don’t know me.”

 

_ “You’re Brian.” _

 

“And?”

 

He smiles softly, almost as softly as the earth you’re both sitting on.  _ “You’re sweet.” _

 

“I hate you,” you remind him, because you do. You do. 

 

He pouts, and you can’t help but smile and shake your head. 

 

“Stop that,” you say. “You’re emotionally taking advantage of me.”

 

_ “Good,”  _ he says, pout lifting.  _ “I’m winning.” _

 

“Winning what? It’s not like we’re competing or anything.”

 

_ “Aren’t we, though?”  _ he asks.  _ “You don’t want me to exist, I want me to exist, you know.” _

 

You sigh and hang your head. “Look, man, it’s not like I don’t want you to exist. You’re just...the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.”

 

_ “I’m...scary?” _

 

“You manifested a dream daisy into the real world,” you deadpan. “You were on the subway. I think. You keep, like, showing up. Everywhere.”

 

The man seems taken aback.  _ “I...really?” _

 

You carefully nod, scooting away a few inches. “I thought you knew. With the flower and everything.”

 

_ “I, uh,”  _ he flounders for a moment.  _ “I thought I saw your world. But...was I really there?” _

 

“Same shirt and everything.”

 

_ “This is fucking weird.” _

 

You laugh just a bit too loudly. “This is weird!? Imagine how I feel!”

 

_ “You’re the one who brought me to your world.” _

 

“I did no such thing. In fact, I’ve been trying to get rid of this stupid flower since I got it.”

 

_ “You have not.” _

 

“How...I mean. Yeah. I literally have been.”

 

The man smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Or lack of eyes. Whatever. You shudder. 

 

_ “If you wanted it gone, it would be gone already, Brian.” _

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? I want it gone, asshole. Gone.”

 

_ “Sure you do. Just like you want me gone.” _

 

“I do!”

 

_ “You literally just said you don’t want me gone. I’m just scary, remember?” _

 

His voice has a slight echo to it, something that reverberates in your skull and settles deep in your core. You hate it. You feel the hate flood out of you as he leans back in the grass, his smile settling down into a lazy grin. Something else fills you, and you don’t know what it is, but you don’t like it. You wish your body would let you hate it, hate him. 

 

“What are you?” you ask, knowing that you won’t get an answer. 

 

_ “I’m Patrick.” _

 

“And I’m tired of your bullshit,” you half-heartedly snap. You feel a sudden exhaustion and flop back onto the grass. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

 

_ “You love me.” _

 

You want to say that you don’t, that you, in fact, want this all to end. But you hear yourself say, “Whatever you say, Pat.”

 

He perks up, and you want the grass beneath you to swallow you up. 

 

_ “You said my name,”  _ he says, awestruck. 

 

“I didn’t mean to,” you say, covering your face with your hands. You’re blushing, you don’t know why you’re blushing, you hate it. 

 

_ “Whatever you say, Brian,”  _ he says. He scoots closer.  _ “I love you.” _

 

You kick his leg and wake up before you’re forced to say it back. 

 

-

 

You keep the daisy in a plastic bag in your wallet and refuse to look at it. 

 

You see the man from the subway everywhere you look. In your kitchen making coffee, sitting beside you in the streaming room, with you in the shower. But you blink, and he’s gone. 

 

You know that you can’t forget your dreams. You convinced yourself that you could, for a while, but you know you can’t. Not these dreams. Not his dreams. Because you don’t think they’re yours anymore. Maybe they never were. 

 

Your bedside table is littered with energy drinks. Your desk at work has so many empty coffee cups that you could build a fucking wall around it. And it always works for a couple of days, but your luck always has to run out. You always have to blink and fall asleep on the subway or at lunch or at the dinner table with Laura and Jonah. They don’t seem to notice a thing wrong. No one does. 

 

One morning after a failed night of no sleep, you wake up and grumble, rolling onto your other side and pulling your boyfriend closer. It’s always too hot in your bedroom (too many windows facing the sun), and he’s, like, a literal block of ice. You curl yourself around him, and he hums contentedly. 

 

“Morning,” he whispers, voice still thick with sleep. 

 

You shush him and drift off again, forgetting why you were staying up in the first place. 

 

But you remember once you open your eyes and see him standing above you smiling, the white daisy still perfectly perched behind his ear. You lunge to grab his ankle and wake up, and, when you roll out of bed a few seconds later, it’s otherwise empty. 

 

-

 

Every once in a while, you get flashes like the banana one. You serenading him with the Goofy Movie soundtrack, you carrying him to Times Square, him pressing a temporary tattoo to your cheek, him asking you if you want to call him an old man. Him taking you out for pizza and you feeling more nervous than you’ve been in your entire life. You kissing him for the first time at his apartment as his cat stares. 

 

-

 

You decide to take a different approach this time and decide not to immediately leave. He looks positively delighted as you invite him to sit next to you. A small bowl of watermelon slices appears between the two of you. 

 

_ “For you,”  _ he says, the tips of his ears tinted the same color as the melon slices.  _ “Sorry about, uh, everything. For being weird, I guess.” _

 

You decide not to have any watermelon simply because you don’t want to end up a Persephone to his Hades. God knows how these dreams work anymore. 

 

“Whatever,” you say. “You mind if I ask you some questions today?”

 

He snorts.  _ “When don’t you?” _

 

You roll your eyes more fondly than you’d like. “First question. When did you fall in love with me?”

 

_ “First sight,”  _ is the immediate answer. 

 

“Okay, but when?”

 

_ “Years ago. I saw you and just...knew.” _

 

You blush a bit despite your best attempts. “Uh, cool, yeah. Next question, when do you think I fell in love with you?”

 

The question leaves a sour taste in your mouth, but you swallow it down. 

 

He frowns a bit.  _ “First sight for that, too. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” _

 

“Okay, what does that even mean?”

 

_ “I don’t think I would’ve lived without your love, Brian.” _

 

You snort. “That’s not exactly healthy there, Patrick.”

 

_ “It works,”  _ he shrugs. He pauses.  _ “Can I ask you a question?” _

 

You sigh. “Shoot.”

 

_ “Why do you keep trying to forget me?” _

 

“Because you’re weird and terrifying.”

 

_ “Is that all? Not because you, uh…” _

 

“Hate you?” you ask. You shake your head. “God, I wish I could hate you.”

 

_ “Ouch.” _

 

“Why did you only start showing up when I was eighteen?”

 

_ “You were twenty-three, I think. Or were you lying?” _

 

“Dude, I was...nevermind.”

 

He gives you an amused look and takes a slice of watermelon and offers it to you. Your hand moves to grab it without your permission, and you take a bite. It’s sweet, too sweet, and it’s easily the best thing you’ve eaten in your entire life. You wish you could hate it, but hate’s been missing in your dreams for weeks now. Maybe years, now that you think about it. Your first flower outburst was your first real anger towards him...ever. And it hasn’t been back since. God, help you. 

 

_ “You’re adorable,”  _ he says, his smile crooked and beautiful. 

 

“Please, I’m a tough motherfucker.”

 

_ “Yeah, right.” _

 

You huff and drop the rind onto the grass, watch it disappear, and decide to end this. But, as you poke his hand, the world around you doesn’t fade. You blink and poke it again. And again. He grabs your hand and stares at it. 

 

_ “Oh my God,”  _ he breathes.  _ “Brian, what the-” _

 

You blink, and you’re back in your bed with your hand tangled in your blankets. 

 

You ignore your cat’s judgemental glare and slip out from under the covers, stretch, stand, stretch again, ignore your cat’s judgemental stare as a couple of bones pop with extreme prejudice. You go get ready for the day and forget the dream, because that’s just what you do. Except you don’t. You find yourself smiling down at your yogurt, and you hate it. Hate him, because you’re awake and you can do it now. Except you can’t. 

 

You jump as your phone rings, and, when you check to see who it is, you nearly drop it. The name changes from ‘Pat Gill’ to ‘Simone’, and you want to cry. 

 

-

 

The daisy keeps moving from your wallet to your hair. You eventually give up and leave it be. People have stopped commenting on it by now, anyway. And it makes the man in your dreams a bit less creepy, so that’s a definite bonus. It does make the subway man appear more, more around you, more close. You feel a tap on your shoulder as you edit and pull your headphones off to talk to him, but he’s gone. You see him slide onto a barstool next to you in the cafe in the lobby of your building, but he’s gone. And you miss him, that’s the thing, and you wish you could hate it. Hate him. Because this is real life and your therapist keeps telling you that this is normal. But she’s also convinced that the dream man is real no matter how many times you try telling her otherwise. 

 

“When’s Pat coming over?” Laura asks one night over dinner. 

 

You drop your fork onto the floor and quickly pick it up before Zuko can start gnawing on it. 

 

“Who?” you ask, laughing a little, because this is a joke. You know it is. 

 

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not blind, dude. Usually he’s here by now.”

 

You blink, and he’s suddenly there in the seat next to you picking at his spaghetti. He flashes a smile at you, and you smile back, and Laura gags across the table. 

 

“Y’all are gross,” she says. 

 

Pat wiggles his eyebrows at you, and you laugh and smack his arm. As soon as you make contact, he’s gone, and you’re left eating your pasta in silence. 

 

-

 

“You were at dinner,” you say, and the man positively beams. 

 

_ “I was?” _

 

You nod. “For like, five seconds. What were you doing there?”

 

_ “Eating, apparently.” _

 

“Smartass.”

 

_ “Was I anywhere else?” _

 

“No,” you lie. Because he’s always there, these days. Somewhere around you, whether it’s in your bed or across the street hailing a cab. Laura thinks he’s real. Jonah thinks he’s real. Simone asked when you two are getting married. 

 

He sags.  _ “Oh.” _

 

And he looks like a kicked puppy, and you internally smack yourself. “Also everyone I know thinks you’re, like, real.”

 

_ “I am real.” _

 

“Sure you are, honey.”

 

You flush, and he smiles. 

 

_ “You called me-” _

 

“Hush.”

 

He nods and mimes a zipper across his lips. You laugh, he smiles again, and you suddenly wish that you could kiss that smile. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. You love it, and that’s fine because it’s just a smile. You love him, and that isn’t fine because he’s a figment of your imagination. He has to be. There’s no way he isn’t. 

 

_ “What’s wrong?”  _ he asks, smile flickering. 

 

“I think I love you,” you hear yourself say, and he beams. You hate it. You hate him, you, everything, or you wish that you could hate it, him, you, everything. Because you can’t. You want to, but you can’t. 

 

You squeeze your eyes shut as another flash of foreign memories pop into your head. First time doing the deed, a slow dance at a wedding you don’t recognize, filming stupid videos for your stupid channel that you wish you had thought of before. 

 

“What are you?” you ask, teeth grit against the flood. 

 

His voice is right against your ear as he replies.  _ “I’m Patrick.” _

 

And he presses a kiss to your cheek, and you wake up.

 

-

 

Things are...weird. You aren’t in your apartment when you wake up. Zuko’s there, this is your pillow (you’ve had the same one since college and you are never, ever getting rid of it). You can see your clothes scattered on the floor. But this isn’t your room. The bed’s too big, the closet’s left open, there's a strange cat sleeping on top of the windowsill. 

 

You sit up and pull a daisy out from behind your ear, smiling softly and placing it on the nightstand next to a stack of books about as tall as you are. Something in the back of your mind tells you that he’s a giant sap, that he’s going to need to buy a new bouquet or whatever it is he gets all these daisies from soon because you keep finding them and losing them. And then you sit there and wonder who this ‘him’ is and why you’re okay with these fucking hell flowers. 

 

There’s a ring on your left hand, you notice, and you can’t stop smiling when you look at it. It’s weird. This is all weird. But not weird. 

 

You ignore your cats’ judgemental glares and slip out from under the covers, stretch, stand, stretch again, ignore your cats’ judgemental stares as a couple of bones pop with extreme prejudice. You go get ready for the day and forget whatever it was that you were dreaming. Something about flowers, you think, which is fucking hilarious considering who you’re going to get married to. It’s not weird, you think, despite the overall weird feeling settling into your chest. 

 

You slump into a chair at the table and moan, dropping your head onto the table with a thump and a yawn. You hear your fiance chuckle from the kitchen. 

 

“Long night?” he asks. 

 

“You have no idea,” you huff. Charles pads into the kitchen and hops up onto your lap, and you obligingly pet him. 

 

Around you, the world seems to click into place. You moved out a couple months back and in with Pat, he brought his cat, and you really shouldn’t have stayed up working on Unraveled until two in the morning. Again. Whoops. 

 

The chair across from yours slides out, and Pat sits down with a light groan because he’s an old man. He slides a plate over, and it lightly bounces off your head. 

 

“Eat up,” he says. 

 

“Make me,” you grumble. And you hear your stomach grumble and immediately curse the gods above, and also yourself because you maybe didn’t eat at all last night, instead working. 

 

You lift yourself up and grab a slice of bacon and stick it all in your mouth at once. You wink and give Charles a couple more scritches. Pat downs his orange juice and grins maniacally, and you quickly chew up your bacon and swallow it before he gets any ideas. 

 

“You have ten seconds to get back to that bed,” he says, already standing and pulling his glasses off. But you’re way ahead of him, shoving Charlie onto the floor and taking off for the bedroom. 

 

Every time he kisses you, it feels like you’re home. Because you are, but also because he’s home. 

 

You cup his cheek and smile. “God, you’re beautiful.”

 

He goes red and pauses long enough for you to flip your positions, pinning him to the bed and grinning down at him. You know it won’t get further than this, not at seven in the morning on a workday, but this is enough. Something in the farthest reaches of your mind tells you that this is wrong, that he shouldn’t be here at all, but you chalk that up to the ever-present self-doubt and kiss him anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh i have nothing to promo so just go take a nap? read boat cops? idk. live your life, buddy


End file.
